OtherWise

Writing Unbearable Encounters Through the Register of Black Life

Abstract

This paper explores themes of the liberatory in therapeutic writing. It includes a narrative account of a series of difficult encounters at a writing for wellbeing conference and then reflects on this through an ‘otherwise’ lens. By engaging Saidiya Hartman’s term otherwise, the author highlights possibilities for practice in the field as it navigates the unbearable encounter of race. Terms such as therapeutic writing, creative writing for therapeutic purposes (CWTP), and writing for wellbeing, which do not explicitly reference the liberatory, or processes of ‘getting free’, do not account for the experience, knowledge, and possibilities of Black life. Writing OtherWise is proposed as a mode of practice that creates capacity for being with the difficult encounter and expanded possibilities for writing as personal and collective freedom-making.